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Normally I like to review some local editorials from the Sunday paper today. The websites for the dailies here in Maine seem to all be down though. I am too lazy to go out and buy some copies; frankly the Portland Press Herald is not worth paying money for. I’ve had to look beyond the borders of the Pine Tree State for my opinions this Sunday.

The pickings were slim. I never realized how interesting the opinion sections of Maine newspapers are. It helps that we have a lot of strange people who aren’t afraid to share their views. We’re an odd breed up here. There’s no guessing if someone likes you or not. I’ll stop before I get too far off topic, something else Mainers are prone to do.

Just across the big green bridge from Kittery, Maine is Portsmouth. In the local Portsmouth paper, the aptly named Portsmouth Herald, I came across an interesting piece by D. Allan Kerr. While Kerr states he did not vote for President Obama he will support him and hope he does well, even if he has to keep a skeptical eye on him. This is a typical New England attitude to have. Well, I don’t like you much, but your welcome to catch a ride to the bean suppah with me. It must be some sort of Puritan ethics.

Kerr goes on to dissect Obama’s inauguration speech. The speech thoroughly moved and uplifted Kerr. The aspects of the speech that impressed Kerr were similar to those that got my attention. Overcoming the darkness in our past, our sense of brotherhood, and the call for unity.

Change did not win the election. One could argue that McCain presented changes of his own. The kind of change each candidate offered determined who won. The unity and togetherness that Obama proposed brought voters to his camp. McCain may have been willing to reach across party lines in the past, but that is not the front he presented during the election. The selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate proved that. McCain chose to pander to the dwindling Republican base. Obama reached out to moderates of both sides of the fence. “That one” won.

Both Obama and McCain pledge to secure and spread democracy throughout the world. McCain wished to do this by force. Obama will do this by force when necessary, but more importantly by providing an example and taking the moral high ground, as outlined by his inauguration speech. Obama dispelled the feelings of foreign policy naivete some had. Obama has certainly been reading up on his Roosevelt, Teddy that is.

There may be some in the extreme right that are still wondering how President Obama won. As Kerr points out, Obama silenced them with one sentence from his inauguration speech, saying, “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.” Debate in government shouldn’t stop, but it’s time, and I’ve said this before in other ways, it’s time to get together and fix this damn country that has given us so much to be proud of.